Is Scientific Inquiry an Intellectual Descendant of the Hebrews? Dru Johnson   Could the Christian Bible contain the conceptual seeds of scientific inquiry? It seems odd to ask such a question about a notoriously religious collection of texts. However, in the milieu of ancient Near Eastern (ANE) literature, the Hebrew texts stand out as distinctively rational with regards to creation. By this, I am not referring to the standard line that, because creation is ordered for the Hebrews, we can therefore study it empirically and predictively. That may be correct. Rather, their depictions of human knowers in these Hebrew texts distinguish themselves amongst their peer traditions, and resonate with scientific inquiry today.  Over seventy-five years ago, ANE scholars claimed that the Hebrew biblical literature uniquely contained a sustained